Eco Factor: Solar-powered houseboat recycles waste.
For those of you who have had the pleasure of living in a houseboat, the experience might have been mesmerizing. From fun, this experience can quickly turn into a necessity if glaciers keep on increasing the sea level at a pace at which they’re today. Industrial designer Wyatt Little is trying to keep abreast with the needs of the future in the greenest possible way. Little has designed a stunning houseboat, which has been carefully planned after living in a houseboat for about six years.
Dubbed the Uboat, the electrically propelled houseboat eliminates the environmental issues commonly associated with boats. Mostly in all urban areas, there is always some sort of large body of water, be it a canal, bayou, lake, or ocean, which Little wants to make just as livable as land. By implementing this idea it would reduce commuter and residential pollution, all the while bringing a fresh new look to city waters that more often than not go unlooked.
Since there is no possibility of a grid connection for a floating house, Little’s Uboat is powered by 3 Schüco 180 Watt 16 Volt Solar Panels measuring 62.28″ x 32.83″. The house has to be placed on water it is an ideal scenario to use a geothermal pond loop. Little estimates that for each boat it will take 1.2 standard coils (360 feet) of pipe in a body of water that is at least 8′ deep, which will provide the required amount of energy for heating and cooling the boat.
The boat will not produce any sewage what-so-ever. All waste will be incinerated using a special toilet. Water comes from 2 different sources – the gray water will be collected by the vessel’s Heavy Duty PAR pump at the bottom of the vessel. This pump is capable of pumping 24 gallons of water per minute, so it is perfectly suited for daily tasks that require large amount of water like showers.
When considering drinking water the designer focused on the statistics that everyone needs to consume 1/2 ounce of water per pound of body weight. So, with this formula in mind Little designed a water cistern in the form of a glass wall that will sustain one person weighing approximately 200 pounds for at least a year. When the rain water is collected it will pass through a filtration system and zapped by an ultraviolet light inside of the tank, which makes it suitable for consumption.
The houseboat’s wooden deck is made from Plyboo FSC certified bamboo plywood, which is 100% renewable. The facades are Insulated metal panels which have a thin metal skin and foam insulation for the core. They provide excellent thermal protection and efficient use of materials. The boat floats on two large pontoons made of recycled polypropylene.
As a way to efficiently harvest as much water as possible the roof has a very subtle inward angle towards the middle of the boat where the orifice for the cistern is located. The roof has been turned “green” for two reasons – natural cooling during the hot summer season and for natural filtration of large particles in rain water before it is collected in the main cistern tank.
Thanks: [Wyatt Little]
